[lbo-talk] Parecon entrepreneurialism?

[John Thornton]

> >   First, in parecon, how would we decide whether or not to
> > start a new business and how do we decide when a business has
> > failed?
>
>If you want to create a workplace, you petitiotn the industry, or if it
>is a new industry, the economy -- the trick is simply to get inputs and
>outputs from the planning system.

For the sake of discussion lets say there are two companies making widgets. 
I wish to start a widget company also. I send my proposal to the industrial 
council of widget manufacturing, presumably made up of people who work for 
widget company one and two, since these are the people that would be most 
directly affected and have the most knowledge of widgets. Why on earth 
would they let me open a competing business and risk losing their market 
share and therefore their bargaining ability in determining their 
remuneration? Entrepreneurialism is not an overriding concern of mine in 
parecon but your answer seems to run counter to human nature. In my opinion 
most people would not risk both job security (reduction in sales of widget 
company one means a reduction in workforce) and power (with fewer players 
in a given field more power is assigned to each player) for the sake of 
some sort of perception of fairness. Perhaps I'm overly pessimestic.

John Thornton